Dance with passion

For too long, a prejudice against intimacy has distorted some of the greatest dance idioms that ever expressed the soul of a culture. We seem to value dance only when it looks imposing, theatrical, with large casts spread across our biggest stages. When a performance represents a soloist's deep, subtle and almost private response to music, a text or personal demons, we think of it as a lesser experience.

What this prejudice has done to the art of tap, to ancient classical dance forms of India and to flamenco has often been discussed in these pages, along with the dancers and companies working to restore those arts to their proper scale. But flamenco has been especially fortunate in Southern California, for not only has a vibrant performing community developed in our midst but so have venues providing a close-up view of the ways that passion, dance technique and a throaty, improvisational singing style can fuse.

Since 1990, the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood has been a major center for flamenco expression, its 80 seats making it smaller than many of the caves and cafes in the Gypsy enclaves of Spain where the art began. The Gypsies were a nomadic people, and flamenco displays evidence of their travels in its Moorish and Arabic elements, just as it reflects the melancholy and defiance inspired by their being a despised underclass in Spain -- outcasts in their own land.

To Deborah Lawlor, who has produced the Fountain flamenco events from the beginning (along with plays and other dance performances there), showcasing major artists on that stage has been one of her prime satisfactions, along with what she calls "that magic moment, that pulse of excitement when the audience is breathing with the performers." She laughs. "Of course, you miss that when it doesn't happen with the next show."

Lawlor and Ben Bradley currently produce the Fountain's "Forever Flamenco!" series on the first and third Sundays of every month, and last Sunday a five-member ensemble, mostly from Santa Barbara, performed to a packed house. Afterward, dancer Cristina Villalobos spoke of how the Fountain frees her to convey her feelings more directly. "I don't feel like I have to cover the stage end to end," she explained, "and I can improvise every step. I don't have to be a giant."

She also doesn't have to compete with the distractions of the restaurants and bars where flamenco performances often take place elsewhere in the Southland -- and in Spain. "People come to watch and hear the performance, not to party," she said. "There's a lot of connection going on."